Jim Fricke is Senior Curator at the Experience Music Project (EMP) in Seattle. He was curator of the Hip-Hop Nation exhibit.

Charlie Ahearn is a filmmaker whose 1982 landmark film Wild Style has become a hip-hop classic. It has just been released for the first time on DVD from Rhino Video and the soundtrack was chosen by Vibe magazine as one of the "Top 10" Soundtracks of all time. He lives in New York City.

Nelson George is the author of fourteen books of fiction and non-fiction, including The Death of Rhythm and Blues and Hip-Hop America, both nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He wrote about hip hop for Billboard and the Village Voice in the 1970s and 1980s. He lives in Brooklyn.